


Quarrel

by emeralddarkness



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, that was a stupid thing to do hon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 13:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeralddarkness/pseuds/emeralddarkness
Summary: Never point a weapon at something you're unwilling to destroy.





	Quarrel

It had happened so fast.

It hadn’t been a situation that Tauriel had ever _wanted_ to be in, exactly, but she had been so angry at the time that she hadn’t cared, even after what she was doing had a chance to sink in. It felt like rage and adrenaline had been twisting through her veins instead of blood. Thranduil was in front of her with his army because he had turned because he was running, he was _running away_ , turning his back on those who needed him _again_ (was this what happened with his wife, she had wondered at the time, with her parents, had he turned around and left them as he was turning to leave the dwarves who were good people because he had no heart and ice in his veins?)

He wouldn’t. He would _not_ leave good people to die, not this time, and – so she had thought, or at least she had thought she had thought – she was banished already, so it wasn’t like she could make her plight so very much worse by _making_ him stay. What further could he do, after stripping her home? Execute her?

There was no greater crime than for elf to kill elf, the King had told her long ago, gentle hands unsnarling tangles in her hair and plaiting it back from her face so it would not catch on twigs and bark and branches as she raced through the trees. No greater crime. He wouldn’t kill her, he had raised her.

His eyes had furious and cold as his heart must surely be (or so she had thought), and his movements were as tight and wrathful and dangerous as a lion.

_Enemy_ , had said her instincts, and _no_ answered her heart, but she had spent months and years and decades training her instincts in what to do when faced with danger until she could no longer feel her fingers, and that was what spoke loudest when his sword began to move. _Attack_ , said her instincts in response to the attacker, singing with adrenaline, and had taken control of her arms and her fingers had twitched (because that was all it took) at the bright flash of his sword flicking up, and then a millisecond later her screaming heart had caught up with what she’d taught herself to do and tried to snatch back again the bowstring.

Too late.

Tauriel had always had good aim, and Thranduil was not far away. She could see in perfect detail as the arrow hit his ice-blue eye, and as he crumpled before her in seconds that seemed to fill up hours. He’d seemed surprised, in the moments before she killed him.

The King had fallen ungracefully, which was somehow in that moment had seemed more bone jarringly _wrong_ than even the rest of the scene; the King could perhaps be called many things, but ‘ungraceful’ had never been one of them. The dull sound of his armor hitting the paving stones was as loud as a crack of thunder in silence; Tauriel was frozen in shock and horror, staring down at hair that was almost white and blood as red as poppies, both of them bright against the dark of his armor and the broken, blackened flagstones he was spread against. It was so picturesque and so hideous that it seemed dreamlike, as blood slowly ran down the stones towards her feet.

It was Legolas’s cracked whisper that finally broke the stillness apart and made everything real.

“Father?”

Tauriel felt her heart in her throat, blocking her breath. She turned to Legolas, her movement quick and sharp and stricken, and had stared at the king’s son – the king, now? – in horror, as he stared down at the body of his father. He wasn’t looking at her, he barely seemed to notice her. 

“I didn’t-” she tried saying, though she hardly knew how she would finish the sentence. I didn’t plan this? I didn’t mean to? This isn’t what I’d wanted, to become a kinslayer, but when he-

There was a yell of fury from one of the guards – someone, she couldn’t seem to recognize them at the moment, even though she’d known most for centuries, and commanded all in the 20 odd years since her promotion. She couldn’t make herself look to find out who it was.

“Someone get a healer!”

“The King, the King…!”

Tauriel felt the bow fall from her hands, and saw it fall into the blood.

“Sire,” someone was sobbing and again she looked first to Legolas and then to the king she had killed and felt herself wholly frozen in shock that was muffling the rest of the world. And then, all at once, everything seemed to be alternating between moving in slow motion and all too quickly. She felt like she hadn’t blinked before Legolas was at his father’s side, and saw him trying to assess the wound, and a moment later someone had grabbed her, had disarmed her, there was a healer checking the king’s pulse. Someone was snarling that she was a traitor, someone else was saying they should have known this would happen when she’d been born with red hair, someone was crying a lament, and Tauriel could not move, could not think, not until a snarling orc had slammed into her side, and at least five other elves had seemed to sprout blades and arrows from their flesh, and then more people were dying.

_I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to, I didn’t mean this, I didn’t want this,_ were her thoughts, chasing each other in frantic circles and leaving her quite unable to think of anything else. The king was dead, the king was dead, he was dead on the ground, the king was dead.

Another orc trying to behead her was enough to at least make her move, and reach for a knife that the guard who had grabbed her had taken and find nothing there. So instead she’d turned and run, and let the speed pull the thoughts once again away from her.


End file.
